Gottfried Got Fired

Best headline, so far, of the year:

Aflac Fires Duck Voice Gottfried Over Tweets


The scary thing is that I understood it immediately....

Lee's Blues (2011)

Funny--I wrote this before the car accident, but the timing was otherwise perfect. It's the soundtrack of my fractured-spine experience, even if it clocks in at about one minute.

I did it in step-time on my cheap music software, using patches from my Casio WK-3800 synthesizer. I had tried to do the right-hand chords "live" but couldn't get the right dynamics. The chords use every note of a dominant 13th, giving them a jazzy sound. The left hand omits the root, but I stuck it up top for sentiment's sake. I quickly wrote a bass line, programmed simple percussion, and Lee's Blues were born. Was born. Whatever.

Click here to hear: Lee's Blues (2011)

Meanwhile, my performance of the original version of Jingle Bells (called One Horse Open Sleigh, from an 1872 songbook) has reached 929 downloads! Whoa. That link: The One Horse Open Sleigh (James Pierpont)

Me and my Casio are a hit. I feel the blues lifting....


Lee

Sunday evening gospel--Janz Quartet

I do plan to get back to Sunday morning gospel--this is just a temporary departure. ("Just a temporary..."--is that redundant?) Anyway, our ears are about to be blessed with the brilliant singing of the Janz Quartet of the Prairie Bible Institute (Three Hills, Alberta, Canada)--we'll be hearing the whole (all eight tracks) of the 1955 10-incher, Hymns That Live (Sacred 7013). I bid on this, why, you ask? Because it has Charles H. Gabriels' Sail On, possibly my favorite gospel hymn of all. It was the hymn, at least, that started my love affair with sacred music, and for some reason it's not recorded very often. (Just to annoy me, probably.) It falls into a category of well-known and beloved hymns that only occasionally show up on disc. At one time, it was one of the popular gospel songs. You will hear why when you play the Janz Quartet's magnificent version.

Fabulous close-harmony singing of what I call the "art gospel" style. At some other blog--don't remember which one--the material on this label (Sacred) was referred to as "crap." I suspect this had more to do with the word "Sacred" than anything else. To the Sunday evening gospel:

Janz Quartet--Hymns That Live (1955)


PLAYLIST

FADE, FADE EACH EARTHLY JOY
NO NOT ONE (Hugg)
SAIL ON (Gabriel)
EVERYBODY SAID, AMEN--GLORY, HALLELUJAH
DOES JESUS CARE? (Graeff-Hall)
MOTHER'S PRAYERS HAVE FOLLOWED ME (DeArmond-Ackley)
A GRAND OLD HIGHWAY
BEHOLD I SHOW YOU A MYSTERY

Janz Quartet--Hymns That Live (Sacred 7013; 1955)


Lee